


Adventures in Space and Time: Volume 1

by CharlieTheWhovian



Series: Doctor Who: Adventures in Space and Time [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: 2017, Alien Invasion, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Future, Amnesia, Australia, Beyond the Rift, Bristol, Character Death, Chasm Forge, Deep space, Fake Regeneration, Future Human Colony, Gen, Life in the TARDIS, London, London Frost Fair, Major Character Undeath, Major character death - Freeform, Mondas, Mondasian Colony Ship, Multiple Regenerations, Outer Space, Propaganda, Rassilon's Roulette, Regency, Rift (Torchwood), Skaro, St Luke's University, TARDIS Rooms, Taken By The Rift, Team TARDIS, Temporary Amnesia, Temporary Character Death, The Battle of Verdun, The Future, Time Travel, Turmezistan, University, Victorian, Wales, Welsh Coast, World War I, house share
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23409667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieTheWhovian/pseuds/CharlieTheWhovian
Summary: This is story is largely based on 'The Pilot' by Steven Moffat. The only characters I own in this are the students and the continuing subplot is also of my devising.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Jack Harkness/Rhys Williams, Heather (Doctor Who: The Pilot)/Bill Potts, Jack Harkness & Team Torchwood, The Master (Simm) & Missy, Twelfth Doctor & Nardole & Bill Potts
Series: Doctor Who: Adventures in Space and Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683958
Kudos: 3





	1. A Star In Her Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is story is largely based on 'The Pilot' by Steven Moffat. The only characters I own in this are the students and the continuing subplot is also of my devising.

St Luke's University. 2017. The year when everything changed. 13 students huddled around a couple of benches, eating chips. A man with messy grey hair approached them followed by a young woman. "So this is the famous Bill," Charlie said as he turned his head round to face them.  
"Why is she here? Christie, why is the dinner lady with the Doctor?" Charlotte turned to Christie who was sat to her left.  
"Charlotte shut up!" Emily nudged her from the other side.  
Bill looked a little taken aback.  
"Ignore her. Charlotte's the loud mouth of the group. I'm Charlie by the way," Charlie said holding out his hand for Bill to shake.  
"Hi," Bill smiled, shaking his hand.  
"And this is everyone else," Charlie gestured to the group before introducing them going clockwise around the table, "So this is Milly, Liv, Lauren, Olaolu, Pharez, Emily, Charlotte you've already met and then there's, Christie, Stevie, Joe, Will and Mat. Everyone this is Bill, the Doctor's friend."  
Bill waved at the group.  
"Where's Nardole?" Charlie asked.  
"Feeling shy," Bill smirked, glancing back towards Nardole who stood in the doorway, watching on disapprovingly. When he saw he was being watched, he pushed his glasses back up his nose and bumbled off down the corridor.  
"Right well, you got your wish, you've met Bill, now we've got things to do." The Doctor said, trudging off.  
"Okay, I'll stop by your office later," Charlie said.  
"See ya," Bill smiled, leaving the group following after the Doctor.  
"Okay, guys there's something I need to tell you..." Milly announced, nervously.  
"What's wrong?  
Milly took a deep breath and as she was about to speak, she was cut off.  
"Shit we've got to get to the lecture hall!" Will exclaimed.  
Some of the others checked the time and then they threw their books and other belongings into their bags and hurried out of the canteen in an attempt to make it to their lecture in time.  
"I'll get the others together. We'll meet in the quad later so you can tell us, yeah?" Charlie said to Milly.  
"Okay, yeah," she replied.  
"Is everything okay though?"  
"Yeah, it's okay, don't worry. Now come on, don't wanna be late."

  
A couple of lectures later, the group had all gone back to their dorms and Charlie had gone to see the Doctor at his office. The Doctor was still coming back from a lecture but Nardole had let Charlie in and left 2 mugs of tea (with coffee for added flavour) out on the Doctor's desk.  
Charlie grasped the mug with both hands and leant on the Doctor's desk with his elbows pulling the steaming liquid to his lips. He nearly spilt it when without warning, the Doctor barged into the room, the door slamming hard against the room.  
"Human pudding-brains!" he exclaimed.  
"Good day at work then?" Charlie asked.  
"Oh, what are you doing here?" The Doctor replied.  
"I told you I'd be stopping by. Now sit down already, your tea's getting cold."  
"How's that Scooby-Doo gang of yours?" The Doctor enquired.  
"My friends are fine thanks. Although..."  
"Hmm?"  
"Milly says she's got something important to tell us. She seemed nervous, scared even."  
"Human emotions are funny like that. Have you told them what you are yet?"  
"No, of course not! How do I tell them I'm an 118-year-old Time Lord? I mean does Bill know about you?"  
"Well, no. Okay point taken. And speaking of which, it's nearly 6. Bill will be here for her tutoring."  
"Okay, I won't get in your way."  
Charlie glanced over to the TARDIS parked in the corner on top of the rug that Bill had bought the Doctor for Christmas.  
"I see you've been off world again. Without me... Anywhere nice?"  
"Renaissance Era France. How did you..."  
"The rug. It's always the rug! I told you, sir. You cannot keep breaking your oath!" Nardole argued as he entered the room.  
Charlie sat back into his chair, ready to watch the argument unfold, a grin forming on his face.

  
Before the Doctor could give a witty retort, Bill walked in through the other door.  
"Thank you Nardole. You can go now." The Doctor snarled.  
Nardole furrowed his brow and walked out.  
"Bill, you remember Charlie?" The Doctor gestured. Charlie smiled and gave a small wave of greeting.  
"Um, yeah hi..." It was evident from the look on her face that something was bothering her. She was distracted.  
"What's wrong?" The Doctor asked.  
Bill explained how she'd met a girl with a defected eye (that looked like a star) called Heather in a bar a few days ago. By chance, they met again when she found Heather sat on a bench in the quad by herself. She went with Heather to see what was bothering her. A puddle. A seemingly ordinary puddle. Except it hadn't rained. But it wasn't even that, that concerned Heather. Nor the scorch marks on the floor. What really unnerved Heather was the reflection in the puddle. There was something wrong with it.  
"She said it was a defect, but what kind of defect puts a star in your eye? But that doesn't even matter because she was right. There was something wrong when you looked in the puddle," Bill rambled.  
"Bill..." Charlie interrupted.  
Bill was oblivious and continued talking.  
"That was definitely my face. I see my face all the time. I've never liked it, it's all over the place..."  
"Bill."  
"...It's always doing expressions when I'm trying to be enigmatic. I know my face, and there was something wrong with my face in the puddle. What could be wrong with your own face?"  
"Bill!"  
Bill trailed off as she saw the Doctor running off across the quad from the window. She turned her head sharply to see the Doctor's swivel chair still spinning.  
"I tried to tell you..." Charlie grinned.  
Without reply, Bill grabbed her bag off the side and ran out the door.  
"God, I've missed this!" Charlie placed his now empty mug on the Doctor's desk and followed after Bill.

The Doctor moved quickly but so did Charlie and Bill and they made it onto the quad just in time to see which way the Doctor went.  
"Doctor!" Bill called out.  
She and Charlie followed after him and eventually found him circling the puddle Bill had described, looking perplexed. He stared coldly at the puddle. It felt as if it was staring back.  
"God, you're fast! Why do you run like that though?" Bill panted.  
"Like what?" The Doctor asked  
"Like a penguin with its arse on fire," Bill responded.  
Charlie smirked as he leant against a lamp post.  
"Ergonomics. That's my face, yeah?" The Doctor said pointing at the puddle.  
"You seem a bit flexible on the subject," Bill observed.  
"Oh, you've no idea."  
"Maybe it's got something to do with that thing in her eye," Bill suggested.  
"How?"  
"I don't know. Look I know you know lots of stuff about basically everything, but do you know any sci-fi?"  
Charlie let out a snort of laughter. The Doctor straightened up and raised an eyebrow.  
"Go on."  
"Well... what if she's possessed! Something like that."  
"Possessed by what?" Charlie asked.  
"Oi, I'm the teacher here!" The Doctor said jokingly.  
Charlie stepped back raising his hands in surrender.  
"Possessed by what?" The Doctor reiterated.  
"I don't know... Ooh! I saw this thing on Netflix! Lizards in people's brains!"  
"Right. So you meet a girl with a discoloured iris and your first thought is she might have a lizard in her brain? I can see I'm going to have to up my game. Oh..."  
"What?" Charlie asked.  
"Ohhh!"  
"What is it, what?!" Bill exclaimed.  
"Oh, I get it! I see it! It was easy for your friend because of her eye!"  
"What because it gives her special powers?" Bill inquired excitedly.  
"No! Because her face isn't symmetrical. Look! Look into the puddle. Your face looks wrong because it looks right! What's the one thing you never see when you look at a reflection? Your face! You never see your face the right way round! Right, look for a freckle or a funny tooth. Something that's not symmetrical."  
"My badge!" Bill said clutching her jacket.  
"See, your friend saw it straight away because of her eye."  
"But it's moving like a reflection." Charlie pointed out.  
"It's not reflecting you. It's mimicking you. There's something in the water pretending to be you." The Doctor collected some into a test tube and continued. "Of course. It isn't water."

Charlie pulled the Doctor aside and said in a hushed tone, "This is alien, isn't it?"  
"Almost certainly."  
"Dangerous?"  
"Possibly."  
"Do we need to evacuate the university?"  
"Unlikely."  
"Should I get Bill out of here?"  
"Definitely."  
The Doctor and Charlie then rejoined Bill.  
"Now what are these?" The Doctor asked rhetorically. "Scorch marks. Interesting."  
He paused, before suddenly turning to Bill and ushering her away.  
"Right you. Let's get you on the bus."  
"The what? The bus?"  
"Tutorial's over, take the night off. It's all cancelled. Go and be a proper student. Texts, snogging, vegan wraps."  
"But what about the puddle?"  
"Oh, it's just some freak optical effect. I'm bored already!"  
In an alien voice, the puddle watched them leave and said "PASSENGER SELECTED. PURSUIT ENGAGED." Suddenly the puddle sprang to life and began flooding after them.

After seeing Bill onto the bus the Doctor and Charlie walked back across the quad.  
"So what now?" Charlie asked.  
The Doctor replied, "I'm gonna go back to the TARDIS and try and work out what this thing is. And you are gonna go hang out with your friends in the quad."  
"Oh crap, I forgot about that. But what if it's dangerous?"  
"I'll be fine."  
"But..."  
"Charlie."  
"Fine, but you call me if there's a problem."  
"No."  
"No! You can't keep shutting me out like this. You couldn't have saved Clara or River. No one could so you have to stop blaming yourself. I'm not arguing with you, I'm telling you. Call me, okay?"  
"Okay, deal."

Bill unlocked the door to her flat and heard the shower running. Knocking on the door, she called out to her foster mum, "Hey, I'll make you a cuppa for the bath."  
As she walked into the kitchen her phone rang. "Hello?"  
Bill's pulse began to race as the voice on the other end was that of her foster mother, Moira.  
"Sorry I'm not there, love, but I think we both know it's time I treated myself."  
"Are you back with Neville?"  
"Why would I be back with Neville after last time? Why do you think I'm such an idiot?"  
"Well, you're calling from his phone... Is there someone staying at the flat?" Bill asked glancing towards the bathroom  
"Of course not, no. What are you talking about?"  
"Errrr, nothing. Never mind. I'll see you tomorrow."  
Suddenly the water stopped running and a splashing of water could be heard.  
"Is someone in there? Is that Barry? 'Cause she's with Neville and it's not my fault."  
Bill grabbed an umbrella and edged towards the bathroom.  
"Sorry I need to know who's in there. I'm coming in. Make yourself... decent."  
Taking in one last deep breath, Bill stormed into the room. The last drops of water gurgled down the plughole. Bill surveyed the rooms and her eyes quickly fell on the shadowy figure stood behind the shower curtain.  
"If that's Barry, let's not make this worse... Just say it's you."  
Hesitantly, she edged towards the silhouette behind the shower curtain. Closer and closer. With a swift pull, Bill swiped the curtain aside to find no one stood there. Just a few drops of water draining away. Bill watched as the final drips trickled down the plughole and staring back up at her through the limescaled rim of the plug hole was a starry eye. A whole galaxy concealed in an iris. Heather. Bill gasped and fell back against the sink in shock, before scrambling for the door and racing out of the flat and down the high street, bumping carelessly into passers by, thinking only of where she was heading to, or rather who. The Doctor.

Charlie exited his dorm and slowly walked towards the quad where most of his friends were waiting. Mat, Olaolu and Pharez went up to him to greet him and then they all sat in a circle on the grass of the quad.  
"Who we still waiting on?" Pharez asked.  
"Lauren's nearly here and Charlotte and Liv are just leaving their dorms," Emily said.  
"Oh my god, Stevie got lost again," Christie announced causing the group to burst into laughter.  
"This girl, I swear to God. She only lives on the other side of the campus..." Mat laughed.  
"I'll go find her," Joe said.  
"I'll go with you," Will said following after him.  
Charlie sat down next to Milly who appeared tense. Taking her hand, he asked her, "Are you sure you're okay?"  
Before she could reply, Bill came sprinting through the quad wearing a shocked yet fearful expression.

She ran straight past them but Charlie called out anyway. "Bill?!"  
The whole group suddenly began to spring to life asking questions but Charlie was still looking towards the way Bill went as he realised he had seen that look before. Something was happening. Something alien.  
With a whoosh and a slam, the door swung open as Bill burst into the room. A state of shock was plastered on her face. She frantically scanned the room and grabbed the wooden chair in front of the Doctor's desk and jammed it in front of the door handle. The Doctor glanced up from the phial of puddle liquid he was analysing, "Hello Bill..."  
Bill made no response but looked on in terror as water began to seep in under the door.  
"What's that?" The Doctor asked.  
"I'll tell you what it isn't. It isn't a freak optical effect..."  
Heather began to take firm from the water - her face and lips pale, her eyes dark and lifeless and her hair wet and plastered to her head. Bill continued, "And it's following me."  
Curious, the Doctor stepped towards Heather, reaching out.  
"No, no, what are you doing?" Bill exclaimed.  
"I'll tell you what let's just pop into my box." The Doctor said, ushering Bill towards the TARDIS.  
"Your box? What good is getting in your box gonna do?"  
"What an extraordinarily long and involved answer this is going to be..." They stepped quickly into the box and snapped round to look at the Heather creature and observe its movements, the Doctor grabbing the 'Out of Order' sign off the door in the process.  
"How do we stop it getting in? We're trapped in here!" Bill worried.  
"Nothing gets through those doors."  
"Uh, but they're made of wood... They've got windows!"  
Bill continued to look through the window at Heather, oblivious to the Doctor walking down the ramp and turning on the power to the TARDIS console room behind her.  
"Look, this is all mad, I know, but that's the girl I told you about. Heather. Only I don't think its really her. I know this is hard to believe. I know you're not exactly a sci-fi person..."

Bill stopped mid-sentence when she turned to see the column and the console light up before the whole room illuminated.  
"Time And Relative Dimension In Space. TARDIS for short. You're safe in here and you always will be. Any questions?" The Doctor smirked at Bill's reaction. She stood in confusion for a few moments and after she stopped gawping she was able to ask, "Is this a knock-through?"  
"Well in a way yes."  
"Look at this place. It's like a..."  
"Spaceship."  
"...Kitchen!"  
"A what?"  
"A really posh kitchen, all metal. What happened with the doors though? Did you run out of money?"  
"What you are standing in is a technological marvel. It is science beyond magic. This is the gateway to everything that ever was or ever can be."  
Bill strolled around the room as the Doctor gave his speech. Her head poked out from behind the central column and she asked, "Can I use the toilet?"  
"Pardon?"  
"I've had a fright. I need the toilet..."  
"It's down there, first right, second left, past the macaroon dispenser."  
"Thanks."

As Bill descended the stairs Nardole came up in the other direction.  
"Oh, human! Human alert. Do you want me to repel her?" Nardole asked, gesturing towards Bill.  
The Doctor replied, "She's just passing through. She wants to use the toilet."  
"Oh, I'd, er, give it a minute if I were you," Nardole said to Bill.  
A deep growl from within the TARDIS caused the room to shake.  
"What was that?" Nardole asked.  
"We have an incursion on campus. Extra-terrestrial. We're under attack. Let's move!"  
The TARDIS began to hum and whirr as it dematerialised from the Doctor's office.  
"Oh my god! This isn't just a room is it?" Bill said excitedly.  
"No, it's not just a room." The Doctor replied.  
"This is a lift!"

Moments later the TARDIS materialised under the university outside the entrance to the hyper-dimensional vault.  
"Well, come on then!" Nardole called.  
They emptied out of the box into the cellar underneath the university and headed straight towards two heavily carved ornate doors with Gallifreyan symbols adorning it.  
"No interference here as far as I can see. The vaults secure." The Doctor noted.  
Bill stepped out of the TARDIS, her eyes wide with fascination. "So your box can move? It can go anywhere it likes?"  
"Mmm. Good innit?" Nardole replied, he and the Doctor not leaving the control pad at the door to the vault.  
"Anywhere at all in the whole university?"  
The Doctor scanned the control pad with the sonic screwdriver. "Is it my imagination or is this taking longer than normal?" He said to Nardole.  
Bill poked her head back inside the TARDIS. "Hang on. The room's still inside the box. This isn't a knock through."  
"No." The Doctor replied sarcastically.  
"Doctor! It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!" Bill exclaimed excitedly.  
Nardole held his hand out to the Doctor to shake, "Wa-hey! We got there!"  
The Doctor shook his hand and rolled his eyes.  
"How is that possible? How do you do that?" Bill pondered.  
Nardole stepped away from the door to the vault and approached Bill.  
"Well, first you have to imagine a very big box fitting inside a very small box."  
"Okay..." Bill replied in fascination.  
"Then you have to make one. It's the second part people normally get stuck on."  
The Doctor interrupted, "Can we shut up, please? Busy, busy. I need to know if there's any interest in what's inside this vault."  
"Why, what's inside it?" Bill asked.  
"Something I don't want anyone being too curious about."  
"So you put it in the middle of a university?"  
"Ooo, valid point. Yeah, nice." Nardole said.  
"Either the creature came here specifically for what's in here, or it's just a coincidence." The Doctor explained.  
"It's just a coincidence." Bill decided.  
"Well, we can't know that for sure."  
"Yeah, we can. It was here for ages before it did anything. If it had work to do, why would it lie around in a puddle?"  
"I don't know. Maybe it's a student?"  
"Oh, banter. It's good, this. Your go again." Nardole chuckled.

Suddenly water began to flow down the steps to the cellar.  
"Nardole, we need to move away from the doors and towards the TARDIS."  
Heather began to form from the puddle as the trio edged their way towards the safety of the TARDIS.  
"What if it attacks us?" Nardole questioned.  
"Well, that's the good news. It means it's not interested in what's inside the vault. It just wants to kill us."  
"Oh."  
"Run!"  
The Heather creature let out a piercing screech and the Doctor, Bill and Nardole hurried into the TARDIS and shut the doors. The Doctor raced up to the console closely followed by Nardole.  
"What are you doing?" Nardole questioned  
The Doctor replied, "Let's take this thing for a run. But first, I have a promise to keep."

Joe and Will had managed to locate Stevie and they now sat in a circle as Liv and Charlotte.  
"Liv, why have you got a bag of food?" Emily asked.  
"What? Charlie said this was a midnight feast?" Liv replied, perplexed.  
"But it's 9 o' clock..." Olaolu pointed out.  
"Yeah, sorry, it was the easiest way to convince you to come..." Charlie grinned.  
Liv opened her mouth to reply with a sarcastic remark and when a strange whirring noise erupted from behind them and suddenly a blue box flashed into existence. Bill raced out of the box, doubling over, trying not to be sick. The Doctor ignored her and beckoned towards Charlie, "Charlie, we've got a situation."  
Out of nowhere, Heather appeared on the grass next to the group. Bill walked cautiously towards her whilst the other students retreated backwards slowly.  
"Bill, be careful," Charlie said.  
"Hello," Bill said to Heather.  
"Hello," Heather replied.  
"You scared me."  
"You scared me," Heather repeated.  
Bill stepped towards Heather and saw water pouring from her mouth and running off her hands. Her body was soaked as the water continued to flow from her.  
Horrified, Bill said, "You're dead!"  
"You're dead!"  
Heather leapt forward at Bill who turned and ran back towards the group.  
"Everyone in!" the Doctor shouted.  
"What in there?" Charlotte questioned.  
"Oh just go!" Milly demanded.

With everyone bundled into the console room, the Doctor bounded up to the controls and set the TARDIS.  
"Yes, it's bigger on the inside. Deal with it. No time. Everyone, shut up!"  
Charlie sidled up next to Bill and Nardole as he watched the expressions of his friends as they took in their surroundings.  
"Oh. My. God." Lauren exclaimed.  
"Woah," Olaolu said.  
Liv looked around in shock before opening a bag of popcorn and distracting herself with its sweet taste.  
"This place is huge!" Mat exclaimed.  
"Some sort of spaceship?" Christie asked.  
"See, spaceship." The Doctor turned to Bill.  
"How does it do that?" Will asked.  
"It's bigger on the inside though. Like, actually bigger." Charlotte said.  
"Yeah, just a bit," Pharez replied.  
"Looks a bit retro," Emily said.  
"I like it," Joe replied.  
Stevie looked around at the overwhelming sights surrounding her. She couldn't comprehend how such a vast space could fit inside such a small box. It was all too much and before she knew it, her eyes rolled back and everything went back as she collapsed onto the floor. Joe hurried over and Milly walked up to Charlie, Nardole and Bill. "This is amazing! What is this place?"  
"Milly, welcome to the TARDIS. It stands for Time And Relative Dimension in Space. It's a spaceship. This is the Doctor, Bill and Nardole." Charlie said.  
"Yes, lovely now hush!" The Doctor interrupted. "It's not interested in the vault, it's chasing us. Let's give it a proper challenge. Let's see how far she's prepared to go."  
"But what about my friend? What about Heather? Can you save her?" Bill asked.

The TARDIS engines stopped. They'd landed.  
"First things first. Let's see if we can survive her." The Doctor said walking through the TARDIS doors. Nardole shrugged at Bill as they all followed him outside onto a bright sunny harbourside overlooking a modern cityscape.  
"But..." Bill stammered.  
"Yes," the Doctor replied.  
"We've moved again."  
"We have."  
"It was night."  
"Yep."  
"Now it's day."  
"Definitely day."  
"Oh, my God! Have we travelled in time?"  
"No, of course not. We've travelled to Australia!" the Doctor said, stepping aside to reveal the Sydney Opera House.

Bill burst into the women's bathroom, splashing water on her face. The Doctor stepped in after her.  
"How are you doing?"  
"How do you think?"  
"Right. Um, how do I help?"  
"Can I ask you a personal question?"  
"No."  
"Can I anyway?"  
"Yes."  
"Are you from space?"  
"No, of course not. Nobody's from space. I'm from a planet like everybody else."  
"This planet?"  
"No, not specifically this one."  
"Doesn't make sense, then."  
"What doesn't?"  
"TARDIS. If you're from another planet, why would you name your box in English? Those initials wouldn't work in any other language!"  
"People don't generally bring that up."  
"It looks like a phone box."  
"Yes. Er, well, that's the cloaking device. It sort of hides itself." the Doctor replied, looking pleased with himself.  
"It's hidden itself as a box with 'pull to enter' on the front?"  
"Uh-huh. It's stuck. It's supposed to blend in, but it's, it's broken."  
Bill let out a small laugh when suddenly water began streaming from one of the mirrors.  
"Doctor..."  
The Doctor and Bill burst out of the toilets into the cafe.  
"Out, out! Everybody out! Shark attack!" The Doctor yelled as Heather slid out of the toilets with a piercing screech, causing everyone to scatter, fleeing in different directions.

"Where are we going?" Milly asked, everyone now back inside the TARDIS.  
"As far as we can. She made Australia in a minute. Let's see what she can really do." The Doctor answered.  
"Sir, we're leaving Earth. What about the vault?" Nardole reminded him.  
"Oh, we're fine. If there's any trouble, I'll get a message on this." The Doctor gestured towards the psychic paper. "Let's see how long it takes her to get here."

The Tardis stopped again.  
"Where are we?" Bill asked.  
"Other end of the universe. Twenty-three million years in the future. Oh, yes, it's a time machine too."  
The group stepped out onto an alien planet with extraordinary rock formations, on top, all wind carved arches and glittering fluorspar crystals.  
"So this is somewhere else? This is a different planet? Not Earth, a different one?" Bill asked.  
"That's the general idea," Charlie replied.  
"That's different sky? Is it made of something different? What is sky made of?"  
"Lemon drops. " The Doctor said.  
"Really?"  
"No, but wouldn't that be nice?"  
"You can be very silly sometimes, you know that? So how do we know this water thing is actually dangerous?" Nardole said.  
"Ah, because most things are."  
"Mmm, that's true. "  
"Why? Is everything out here evil?" Bill asked.  
"Hardly anything is evil, but most things are hungry. Hunger looks very like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery. Or do you think that your bacon sandwich loves you back?"  
"That's cheery," Liv added, staring down at her popcorn curiously.  
"So what is it, and what was it doing on Earth?" Nardole asked.  
"Well, there were scorch marks on the concrete where we found it. Could have been left by a shuttlecraft. The puddle, what did it look like? I mean, if that was a car, what would you say that was?" the Doctor replied.  
"An oil leak? So it's space engine oil?" Bill suggested.  
"Intelligent oil. Super intelligent space oil. No, part of the ship itself. Shape-shifting fluid that becomes anything it needs to be."  
"Seriously?"  
"But it spent ages laying around being a puddle. What changed? Your friend. She looked into it, didn't she? More than once."  
"So?"  
"Maybe it saw something it needed. What was she like, your friend? What did she want? What did she need?"  
"I think she wanted to leave."  
"You see?"  
Charlie said with sudden realisation, "The puddle found a passenger."  
"A left-behind droplet of a liquid spaceship. A single tear drop, alone in a strange world. Then, one day, it finds someone who wants to fly away."

Leaving the others talking, Bill began to explore the surface, looking into a strange rock pool.  
"Not just a passenger. More than a passenger, it found a pilot, so it ate her." the Doctor continued.  
"So why is it chasing this one?" Nardole asked,  
"Everything wants, everything needs."  
"But why does it want her?"  
"I don't know. I don't know everything, Nardole. I don't have it all written down."  
"You act like you do." Charlie cut in.  
"I act like I do because I don't."  
"It must be looking for something.~" Nardole suggested.  
Bill bent down over the rock pool, as Heather's face rose up slowly to the surface.  
"Of course it is, everything is." The Doctor replied.  
"But what?" Charlie asked.  
"What, in the end, are any of us looking for? We're looking for someone who's looking for us..."  
Without warning, Heather screamed, grabbing Bill's face, and trying to pull her down.  
"Bill! Bill! Quick!"  
The Doctor and Nardole pulled Bill free and quickly rounded up the group.  
"Back to the Tardis!" the Doctor shouted as a geyser erupted from the puddle and forming Heather's face behind them.

"Okay, it's fast. It time travels. It never gives up." the Doctor, said, thinking out loud as the TARDIS zoomed across space.  
"Plan! Basic sterilisation. We're going to run that thing through the deadliest fire in the universe."  
"Yes, that sounds excellent! The deadliest fire in the universe! That's definitely good!" Nardole said excitedly.  
"How do we do that?" Bill asked.  
"The only way we can. We run through it first." The Doctor answered.  
"Less good now!" Nardole added.  
Suddenly the TARDIS shook and Nardole looked at the scanner.  
"No, not there. I don't like it there!" He wailed as Charlie came over to see the screen, a look of concern spreading across his face.  
The Doctor grabbed an old sonic screwdriver from his collection, sat on his cluttered desk.  
"Nardole!"  
"I don't like there," Nardole repeated.  
The Doctor threw the sonic screwdriver to Nardole, who caught it.  
"I want you running interference. Can you do that?"  
"Can I say no, sir?" Nardole asked.  
"No."  
"Yes, then."  
"Thank you."  
"But no really."  
"It's okay, I'll go with him," Charlie assured the Doctor, taking his own sonic screwdriver from his pocket.  
"Right, you lot stay here," the Doctor said, heading for the doors.

Milly, Mat, Olaolu and Liv approached Charlie.  
"Woah, woah, woah, you heard the Doctor. You wait here."  
"Yeah, nice try." Olaolu rebutted. Charlie raised an eyebrow.  
"Look, we're coming whether you like it or not," Milly said. The others murmured in agreement as they pushed past him.  
"Okay fine, but you stay close at all times, this is gonna be dangerous."

"Where are we?" Bill exclaimed.  
"Well, we're basically in the middle of a war. No, but, well, it's a war zone, and this is just your basic skirmish. And it's not as bad as it sounds, I promise you. Come on, I've got friends here, old friends." The Doctor assured her.  
"Oh..." Nardole's face screwed up as he braced himself for what awaited him.  
"I say, friends..." The Doctor said as he stepped out into a futuristic corridor.  
"The Doctor is detected! Seek! Locate! Destroy!" A Dalek screeched in the distance.  
Nardole was close to tears. The Doctor and Bill ran through explosions with Liv, Milly, Mat and Olaolu following behind. Charlie stepped and walked up to Nardole who was at the back of the group.  
"Are we still in the future?" Bill asked.  
"No. This is the past." The Doctor replied.  
"Doesn't look like the past. Are we safe here?"  
"Well, that's up to Nardole and Charlie, so probably not..."  
"Oi! We can hear you back here!" Charlie called.  
They ran down the corridor following after the group, using the sonic screwdrivers to spark control boxes as they went.  
"Oh! Oh, another. Oh! Oh, another. Keep moving, Doctor!" Nardole shouted.  
"Where are we going?" Milly asked.  
"Into the fire. Come on."  
Milly and Liv and Mat and Olaolu exchanged worried glances as the sounds of gunfire and screaming grew louder.  
Suddenly a man in a white suit with silver dreadlocks stumbled out of a corridor up ahead.  
"Move! Move! Move!" the silver-haired man said.  
"Who are those guys?" Liv asked  
"Never mind them, it's who they're firing at. Come on."  
Milly looked back hesitantly and her and Liv walked back to where Charlie and Nardole were.

Meanwhile, The Doctor, Bill, Mat and Olaolu ran around a corner and stopped at the sight of an oversized pepper pot on wheels armed with a gun and a very aggressive looking sink plunger. A Dalek.  
"What's that?" Olaolu asked.  
"The deadliest fire in the universe. Take cover." The Doctor replied  
"Identify! Intruder! Identify!" The Dalek commanded.  
The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the Dalek's eye stalk, saying, "Scan this device and identify me!"  
"You are the Doctor. You are an enemy of the Daleks!"  
"Oh, yes, I am!"  
"Wait, what!" Mat exclaimed.  
"Exterminate!"  
The Doctor dragged Bill out of the way as the Dalek fired whilst Mat and Olaolu dived in the other direction. The Dalek's fire goes straight through Heather who was suddenly behind them.)  
"Exterminate," Heather repeated.  
"Exterminate!"  
"Exterminate."  
"Right, I think that's all of them!" Charlie said.  
"We make a good team," Nardole said high-fiving him.  
Noticing, Milly and Liv approaching Charlie asked, "You okay?"  
"We thought it'd be safer back here,"  
"Well don't worry girls, I can keep you safe." Nardole winked.  
"There's a time and a place, Nardole..." Charlie pointed out.  
Ignoring him, Nardole continued, "Oh yes I once took on a whole army of Terrabeserkers. Nothing scares me..."  
He was cut off by the deafening yell of a Dalek behind them. "Exterminate!"  
"Ah!"

A laser beam erupted from the Dalek's gun and exploded against the wall next to them.  
"RUN!" Charlie shouted, leading the way closely followed by Milly. Liv followed behind whilst Nardole remained the closest to the Dalek at the back. Suddenly with the shock of it all, Liv's bag of popcorn slipped from her hand.  
"No!" Liv exclaimed as she ran back to get it.  
Nardole ran past then turned on his heels when he realised.  
"Liv!" He called her but she didn't hear over the explosions.  
Charlie and Milly turned back just in time to see a laser beam pierce through Liv's body, illuminating her body with radiation and exposing her skeleton as her organs were rearranged internally leaving her unable to scream as her life left her body.  
"NO!" Milly screamed.  
She started to turn back towards her lifeless friend but Charlie grabbed her arm and ushered her down the corridor as they and Nardole tried to escape the Dalek, narrowly getting away with their lives.

"What was that thing?" Bill asked.  
"A Dalek." The Doctor responded.  
"A what?"  
"A Dalek."  
"What's a Dalek?"  
"Never mind. It's a Dalek"  
"That's not explaining. That's just saying a word. What's a Dalek?"  
"It's an alien war machine. The deadliest alien war machine ever devised."  
"Fat, though."  
"Sorry?"  
"It'll never get through that door. It's too wide."  
"It's a tank. A tank driven by a super-evolved mutant programmed to wipe out all other lifeforms, so please keep your voice down."  
"It's got a sucker on it."  
"It's also got a gun."  
"It's got a gun and a sucker? Why? They run out of guns?"  
"Bill, please."  
"Is there a Dalek out the back with no guns and two suckers that's really hacked off?"  
"I don't know. I've never asked because I've always been too busy running away. Now please, shhh."  
"One more question."  
"Oh, you do surprise me."  
"Why do they keep saying exterminate?"  
"Because they want to kill us."  
"Wouldn't it be quicker to just say kill?"  
"Do we really want them to save time?"  
"Good point."  
"Now, let's go find the others." The Doctor said taking her hand and running down a corridor in the opposite direction to before. A laser beam flew over their heads exploding into the wall in front of them.  
"Exterminate!"  
The Doctor and Bill turned slowly. Was this the end?

"Ex... ter... min... ate."  
"That's wrong. I know my Daleks, and that's wrong. Oh, I see."  
"You see what?"  
"This isn't a Dalek. Look. Look at the eye."  
In its eyestalk, the Dalek did not have a blue light like normal, but a human eye. A human eye with a star in it.  
"Heather." Bill realised.  
Water started to pour off the Dalek before it dissolved, and Heather stood up.  
"Heather," Heather repeated.  
The Doctor walked around Heather, so she had to turn away from Bill.  
"Interesting. You had a gun but you didn't use it. Why? You've already taken one person from the Earth. I'm going to let that pass because I have to, but I will not let you take another. Go. Just go now. Fly away. Why won't you just go?"  
"Oh, my God. I understand! The last thing she said to me. She promised she wouldn't leave without me."  
"Her last conscious thought, driving her across the universe. Never underestimate a crush."  
"What do we do?"  
"She's not chasing you, she's inviting you. Release her. Release her from her promise."  
"You have to let me go," Bill said hesitantly.  
"You have to let me go." Heather copied.  
"I will."  
"I will."  
"I really liked you." Bill's voice grew shaky.  
"I really liked you." Heather's voice also grew shaky, almost as if she was still alive.  
Heather reached out to Bill, and Bill raised her hand.  
"Bill, don't. Don't! Don't. Don't! Bill, let go!"

Bill and Heather clasped hands, and Bill was thrown into a whirlpool with Heather as the whole of the universe in all its beauty unfolded around them.  
"Bill, listen to me. Whatever she's showing you, whatever she's letting you see. It's a lure, it's a trap. She's making you part of her, and you can never come back!" The Doctor said to her subconscious.  
"I see what you see. It's beautiful." Bill said to Heather.  
"Bill, let go! You have to let go! She is not human anymore."  
"Goodbye, Heather."  
"Goodbye, Bill."  
Bill let go and she stumbled back into The Doctor's arms

"Bill!"  
Heather dissolved into a puddle as Charlie, Milly and Nardole arrived along with Mat and Olaolu.  
"Wait where's Liv?" Mat asked.  
"I'm sorry. The Daleks... They killed her." Charlie said.  
Mat and Olaolu were overcome with shock. The two of them went over to Charlie and Milly and began to talk as Nardole approached Bill and the Doctor.

"They alright?" The Doctor asked.  
"Hard to say at the minute. I'm alright though," Nardole replied.  
"You all right?" the Doctor turned to Bill.  
"Yeah, I think so."  
"You don't look alright," Nardole said, furrowing his brow.  
"She's fine." The Doctor said, leading the way back towards the TARDIS.  
"That's the Doctor for you. Never notices the tears." Nardole crossed his arms and followed after.  
"I don't think they're mine..." Bill said.  
They were close to the TARDIS now when they came back across Liv's lifeless body.  
"Another one. Another life lost on my watch," the Doctor said.  
"Doctor, don't blame yourself," Charlie replied.  
The Doctor gave no response, just picked up Liv's corpse and carried it back to the TARDIS. Nardole went first and held open the door as the Doctor carried Liv in, causing a cacophony of cries to break out.

An atmosphere of solemnity and gloom hung in the TARDIS. No one was speaking. Charlie signalled to the Doctor with his eyes to speak to him in the corridor. The door opened with a metallic clunk as Charlie and the Doctor walked down the stairs and into the corridor connected to the console room.

Once the doors were shut Charlie turned to the Doctor.  
"So is the Retcon ready to go airborne?"  
"It is."  
"Gas mask?"  
"You know, I think you should forget as well. You're young, Charlie. You're still just a student and you need to live your life too."  
"I made my choice. Give me the mask."  
The Doctor handed Charlie a mask.  
"Will they remember this?" Charlie asked.  
"Yes. All they'll forget is any existence of Liv. It's harsh but it's easier for everyone than having to explain and comprehend what really happened. Right now the compound is airborne so don't take your mask off for 3 minutes while it's still circulating."  
"Got it."

Bill sat by the Doctor's desk deep in thought as he stepped out of the TARDIS.  
"The vault alarm went off, but it was nothing. A student was sick outside and it registered as a biological attack." he chuckled.  
"I saw it all for a moment. Everything out there. She was going to let me fly with her. She was inviting me. I was too scared."  
"Scared is good. Scared is rational. She wasn't human anymore."  
"Will we see her again?"  
"I don't see how."  
Bill looked over at the Tardis.  
"No, no, no, no. No, no. You have to forget about that."  
"I don't see how I can."  
"I do. Come here, Bill."  
Bill stood up in front of him. "What's up?"  
"I just want to fix something." The Doctor replied reaching for the temples of her head.  
"Whoa! What are you doing?"  
"Don't worry. This won't hurt at all."  
"No, but tell me."  
"Nothing."  
"Yeah, because I think you're going to wipe my memory. I'm not stupid, you know. That's the trouble with you. You don't think anyone's ever seen a movie. I know what a mind-wipe looks like! "  
"I have no choice. I'm here for a reason. I am in disguise. I have promises to keep. No one can know about me."  
"This is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me in my life. The only exciting thing!"  
"I'm sorry."  
"Okay, let me remember just for a week. Just a week... Okay, well, just for tonight. Just one night. Come on, let me have some good dreams for once... Okay. Do what you've got to do. But imagine, just imagine how it would feel if someone did this to you."  
The Doctor thought long and hard about it as he remembered his last companion, Clara Oswald. His best friend, who he could no longer remember because his mind had been wiped. Bill's eyes were screwed tight as she prepared herself to lose her memory. The Doctor tapped her on the chin to get her attention.  
"Get out."  
"What?"  
"You can keep your memories. Now get out before I change my mind! Don't speak, don't start, just run! Now. Go!" The Doctor's voice grew angry. The other students all stepped out of the TARDIS, leaving it empty as Nardole had remained at the vault. "And you lot can get lost as well!"  
Bill grabbed her things and they all hurried out of the room.

The Doctor's eyes fell on a picture of his granddaughter Susan.  
"Shut up. You shut up as well." He said, turning towards the photo of his late wife, River Song who was recently deceased, due to saving his life. The TARDIS hummed in distaste.  
"Will you all please just leave me alone? I can't do that anymore. I promised!"  
The others approached the quad and Bill smiled to herself as she realised her memories were intact and Heather still lingered in her mind.  
"It's a big universe, but maybe one day we'll find her." the Doctor, who was stood next to the TARDIS, said to Bill.  
"What changed your mind?"  
"Time."  
"Time?"  
"And Relative Dimension In Space."  
He clicked his fingers and the TARDIS door opened.  
"It means, what the hell?"  
The group all smiled at each other as they ran into the TARDIS.

Later, in the TARDIS, Charlie approached the Doctor, who was bumbling around the library. "Will they remember about Liv?"  
"Highly unlikely," the Doctor answered.  
"Good. Because I don't want you remembering either," Charlie said.  
The Doctor turned round to see Charlie stood there in a gas mask. His sonic screwdriver glowed and Retcon filled the room. The Doctor coughed and spluttered through the dense fog and he fell unconscious on his desk as he struggled to maintain his memories. Charlie slipped out of the library and removed his mask, feeling content that the Doctor no longer had any memory of Liv's existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? Stay tuned for part 2!


	2. The Emoji Planet

Bill leant against the TARDIS console as the Doctor went around it flicking switches and pressing buttons.

"So..." Bill said. 

"So?" The Doctor asked.

"What do we do? Do I have to sit somewhere? Are there seat belts?"

"Well, you've done this before. This isn't your first trip."

"Yeah, but it's proper this time." Bill protested as she made her way over to a seat. Almost immediately she stood back up, saying "Oh, that's a mistake."

"What is?"

"You can't reach the controls from the seats. What's the point in that? Or do you have stretchy arms, like Mister Fantastic?"

"Oh, I stand, like this."

"You never thought of bringing the seats a bit closer?"

"No, not so far, no."

"Where's the steering wheel?"

"Well, you don't steer the TARDIS, you negotiate with it. The still point between where you want to go and where you need to be, that's where she takes you." the Doctor explained.

"How much did it cost?"

"Ah. No idea. Stole it."

"Seriously?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Well, actually, because I felt like it. "

"What if I steal it from you?"

"On you go, then."

"I don't know how it works."

"Well, neither did I. "

Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

"Who's that?" Bill asked.

Lowering his voice, the Doctor replied sarcastically, "Mum," before opening the door, allowing Nardole to come bumbling in.

"Excuse me, just what is the TARDIS doing down here?" Nardole interrogated.

"I'm over two thousand years old, I don't always want to take the stairs." the Doctor replied nonchalantly.

"Your oath, sir. You're not supposed to go off-world unless it's an emergency. "

"I'm not off-world."

"Are you going off-world?"

"I'm going back to my office. Could you put the kettle on, please?"

"Hmm. Why's she here?" Nardole questioned, glancing over at Bill who was peering round the central column of the console.

"Because she isn't anywhere else. Kettle." The Doctor replied, brushing him off.

"Well, I'm not making any for her. She can make her own. I'm not a slave for any human, I can assure you." Nardole complained.

As Nardole headed for the door, it swung open violently as Charlie and the other students poured in.

"Hi Nardole," Charlie said in passing greeting.

"Wha-What are all this lot doing here as well?"

"I'm having a tea party. Now go already." The Doctor rolled his eyes.

Nardole furrowed his brow and stepped out of the TARDIS.

"What's the plan then?" Milly asked.

"Back up to your office for a cuppa, then?" Bill inquired.

"Between here and my office, before the kettle boils, is everything that ever happened or ever will. Make your choice." The Doctor replied.

"What choice?"

"Past or future."

"Future," Bill responded without hesitation.

"Why?" The Doctor pondered.

"Why do you think? I want to see if it's happy."

"Why does she get to pick?" Charlotte scoffed under her breath.

"Problem?" The Doctor asked in irritation.

"Someone seems to be picking favourites..."

"Tough. Life's hard, you'll get used to it eventually." The Doctor reassured her sarcastically.

"You still haven't." Charlie pointed out.

"Thank you for your input, Nardole."

"Excuse me?"

Meanwhile far across time and space, a woman in white clothing with a smiling emoji on her back walked through a wheat field towards a futuristic cityscape, accompanied by a small robot with smiley faces for eyes and a large grin across the screen of its face.

"Kezzia, where are you?" A woman's voice asked anxiously through the intercom in her ears.

"Hey, Goodthing. I'm coming back in." The woman in the field responded.

"Kezzia, don't come in just yet." Goodthing pleaded.

"I've been out since second sunrise. I'm hungry. Round them up, big fella!" Kezzia said, turning to the robot walking along beside her with a cloud of insects hovering above it.

"Kezzia, please don't come in. We're having a little tiny Vardy problem."

"Me and my Vardies have just pollinated three miles of wheat."

"You've got to keep smiling."

"Got to what?"

Kezzia entered a large curved building within the city where Goodthing was waiting to greet her with an accentuated beaming grin on her face.

"It's the Vardies..." Goodthing explained.

"God, what's wrong with you? Is that smile supposed to look real? It's like you're standing in a wind tunnel."

Goodthing stepped in front to face Kezzia. "Okay, big smiles now. Brace yourself! Mum is dead."

"Sorry?" Kezzia replied in disbelief.

"Smile, smile, smile!"

"That's not even funny."

"No, it's not a joke. Mum is dead."

The emoji on Kezzia's back changed from a big grin to a dropped jaw.

"Mum is dead. And Hopeful, she's dead too. And her friend Sunshine, she's dead. And Eliza. And quite a few other people are dead." Goodthing grinned.

"Why are you saying this? You can't say things like that, grinning like an idiot." Kezzia said, the emoji on her back now crying.

"Smile, really. Try. If you don't. I shouldn't have told you."

The little robot following Kezzia suddenly changed its face to a crying emoji.

"Please smile. Oh, you're on two tears now." Goodthing implored with tears in her eyes as the robot grabbed Kezzia around the waist and its face changed to an image of bared teeth with skulls for eyes.

"Is it hugging me? Who programmed that?"

Out of nowhere, a section of the roof dissolved into a cloud of insects and descended towards them.

"Please, give her a moment! She'll be happy in a moment! Kezzia!"

The swarm enveloped Kezzia instantly, sending a pile of dry bones clattering to the floor as she screamed. Suddenly the swarm turned its attention to Goodthing.

"No. Look, I'm smiling. Smiling!"

She ran, screaming but the swarm were upon her in no time at all and the robot returned to a smiling face.

"It's a wheat field," Charlotte said unimpressed as she stepped out of the TARDIS.

"Keep an eye out for Theresa May," Charlie said sarcastically. Bill and some of the others stifled a slight chuckle whilst the Doctor stared at him in confusion. Emily nudged Charlotte and turned to indicate the large curved city to the side of them

"Yeah, I don't think it's the field that we're meant to be interested in, Charlotte." Mat said.

"Oh my days you're so lost," Olaolu jeered.

"Which way is Earth?" Bill asked to promptly change the subject.

"Ah, space is bent. Earth is any way you choose to look. Why? You thinking about leaving?" The Doctor questioned.

"Thinking? I'm not thinking. My brain's overloading. Why a phone box?"

"I told you."

"Yeah, well, I get that it's a cloaking device, but why keep it that shape? Why do you like it?"

"Who said I like it?"

"You kept it."

"Come along."

The group walked through the city surrounded by curved white structures and radiant blue fountains.

"This is one of the Earth's first colonies. They say the settlers have cracked the secret of human happiness." The Doctor explained.

Bill and the others took photos on their phones of the beautiful structures as the Doctor continued to ramble.

"One question. Little fella said you made an oath? You're not supposed to leave the planet." Bill said.

"Okay, I suppose I owe you an explanation. A long time ago, a thing happened. As a result of the thing, I made a promise. As a result of the promise, I have to stay on Earth."

"Guarding a vault?" Stevie asked in confusion.

"Guarding a vault." The Doctor replied in confirmation.

"Well, you're not guarding a vault right now." Joe pointed out.

"Yes, I am. I have a time machine. I can be back before we left."

"But what if you get lost, or stuck, or something?" Bill inquired.

"I've thought about that."

"And?"

"Well, it would be a worry, so best not to dwell on it... Look at this building. Look at it. You know what I like about humanity? It's optimism. Do you know what this building is made of? Pure, soaring optimism."

In the open air, the swarm hover overhead.

"What are they? Alien birds?" Bill asked.

"Vardies. Tiny robots. Work in flocks. They're versatile, hard-working. Good at learning skills. The worker bees of the Third Industrial Revolution, probably just checking us out for security."

"These are robots? These are disappointing robots."

"That's a very offensive remark. Don't make personal remarks like that."

"Er, you can't offend a machine." Christie protested.

"Typical wet brain chauvinism."

A high pitch whirring induced and the group clutched their ears in slight pain.

"Oh, what just happened?" Lauren complained.

"Your ear's on fire." The Doctor said examining Bill.

"Ow! Your voice just came out in my ear. I mean, I know voices go into ears but this was like...."

"We have been fitted with some kind of communication device that is using our own nervous system as hardware. We've just downloaded an upgrade for our ears."

"I'll never lose my phone again. I'll never run out of battery again!"

"Welcome to paradise," Charlie said.

"Hang on, is there a mute button though? What if you're in the loo?" Bill asked.

"Who needs loos? There's probably an app for that." The Doctor replied.

"So, where is everyone? Don't tell me we've come halfway across the universe and they've all gone out. We should've texted first or something."

A triangular door at the end of the walkway opened to reveal a small white robot with a glossy smiling emoji face.

"What's that?" Bill said. "That is a robot. That is not a disappointing robot."

The door closed behind them as they stepped into the vast arched corridor stretching far into the distance.

"Technically, this isn't a robot at all. The tiny little things, those are the robots, this is the interface with them."

"Does it speak? Will we understand it?"

The robot's eyes changed to question marks.

"Well, depends on what aspect of your language has survived over so many thousands of years."

"Emoji. It speaks emoji!" Bill exclaimed with sudden realisation.

"Of course it does." The Doctor sighed.

The robot's eyes changed to thumbs up.

"Aw. It's cute." Will said.

The robot held its hands out offering them blank circles. Several other robots suddenly appeared offering more of the discs.

"What's that?" Stevie asked.

"Blank badges of some sort," Charlie replied, taking one to examine using the sonic screwdriver.

"Oh, yours isn't blank. It's got a face on the back." Milly said gesturing to the confused looking emoji facing her.

"You've got one too."

"You've got a frown on yours," Bill said to the Doctor.

"Yours too. Interesting."

"It's never on the side that you're looking at."

"What's it doing now? What, what face is it making?"

"Sort of puzzled. Me?"

"The same. Do you know what I think? I think that this is some kind of mood indicator."

"But you're never allowed to see your own mood."

"Makes sense."

"Does it?"

"Well, seeing your own mood might affect your own mood. It's like a feedback loop, interfering with the information being collected. Like a scale weighing itself."

"So who's collecting the data?"

"Is the big question."

"So what do we do then?" Joe asked.

"Well, if they're badges then..." The Doctor trailed off as he tried to place the badge on his jacket lapel and it whizzed over his shoulder out of sight.

"What? Where's? Where's it gone?"

"Oh, it's on your back," Stevie told him as everyone else tried the same and found the badge stationed itself behind them.

"So, everyone you walk past can see what you're thinking. What if you really fancy someone?" Bill pondered.

"Well, I suppose it means that you have to maintain eye contact with them."

"Oh, that's brilliant."

The now happy interface turned away and began to lead the group forwards down the corridor when Charlie, Mat and Olaolu began to break away from the group and head towards the stairs on their right.

"Uh, where d'you think you're going?" The Doctor inquired.

"Never really been one for a guided tour. We're going to explore. Anyone else coming?" Charlie said.

Will and Joe broke off from the group.

"Pharez are you not coming?" Olaolu asked.

"Probably safer to stick with the tour."

"Finally a companion that doesn't wander off!" The Doctor muttered to himself gleefully.

"Hmm suit yourself," Charlie said as he turned and bounded up the stairs.

"Stay out of trouble!" The Doctor called.

"Never!" Charlie called back as he and the others went out of sight.

The Doctor led the others through the doorway that the interface had guided them to. "Welcome to the future. Emojis. Wearable communications. We're in the utopia of vacuous teens."

At a table in the vast empty space, the interface placed trays down, two blue gelatinous cubes on one and single cubes on the others.

"Look at this. It knew I was starving! Food from another planet. You've got to, haven't you?" Bill exclaimed.

"Ha, the others don't get food." Emily grinned

"Smells like fish," Lauren observed.

"I'm not that fond of fish, except socially, which can complicate a meal like this." The Doctor explained.

"Should we eat it, though? I mean, what if they're not like us?" Bill asked.

'Well, the cutlery's human cutlery. No other species in the universe uses emojis. Everything here is human except..."

"No humans," Milly said.

"Bingo. This is a perfect colony for humans, so where are all the colonists?"

"What is this anyway?" Christie asked, studying her plate

"That's some sort of flavoured algae. I haven't seen any livestock yet."

"That's good, isn't it? In the future we don't eat living things, we eat algae."

" I met an emperor made of algae once. He fancied me."

"Why aren't you loving this?" Bill complained.

"Everything is here, everything is ready, but there's no one here."

"It's like the Student Union first thing, before the actual students arrive," Bill explained. "Two portions, though..."

"Well, that's because that one is mine. That's it! That's it! Of course! The whole place is waiting. We're just too early."

"So, they're all still in bed? But still, two portions. One portion. Is there going to be food sexism even in the future? Is this bloke utopia?" Bill asked disgustedly.

"Wait I don't have two portions though, and I'm a guy," Pharez pointed out.

"Not on Friday nights though," Emily replied.

"We know about the Victoria's Secret bags under your bed," Milly added.

"It's probably reading me as two people. The heartbeats. If you're going to travel twenty light years, you're going to want to make sure you've got somewhere to sleep at the end of it, aren't you? So, what do you do?"

"Sorry? Two hearts?" Bill asked.

"You send a rocket load of intelligent robots up ahead of you. They build you a place to live, so that, when you arrive, it's all waiting. This is brilliant!"

"You, you, you've got two hearts?"

"Robots, they don't breathe. They can fix the atmosphere for you, send data back, so you know whether to bring your waterproofs or not. Work in huge robot flocks. You just send them up ahead and you leave them to it."

"Yeah. Hearts, though. Why two?"

"Well, why one?"

"Does that mean you've got really high blood pressure?"

"Really high."

Charlie and the others slipped in through an open doorway into a large hangar on the highest level of the building. Sunlight poured in through the gaping doorway accompanied by a slight breeze thought only illuminating a small fraction of the room. Futuristic spacecrafts were lined in 3 rows, secured in by various pieces of machinery lit by the dull overhead lighting.

"Hmm still no sign of anyone..." Charlie said, surveying the area.

"Then let's get the hell out of here," Olaolu replied uneasily.

"What why?"

"Well think about it. This place has all been set up and stuff and everything's already started working; the lights have been left on, there's papers all over that desk. I doubt those emoji robot things have left them out."

"Well, they might've done..." Joe interrupted.

"Joe shut up I'm making a point." Olaolu rebutted.

Charlie took Olaolu's argument into consideration before responding, "You know what Olaolu, you're right. You're absolutely right. There's something not right here. It's far too dangerous to stay here."

Olaolu breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"So let's go have a look around over there!" Charlie continued, cutting across the room in leaps and bounds to an ambiently lit alcove in the wall containing workbenches covered in blueprints and various futuristic mechanical tools.

The Doctor, Bill and the others entered a greenhouse lined with coconut palms.

"So, if the people aren't here yet, what do we do? Put the kettle on? Or are we going to leave before they arrive? Is that what you're worried about? I can see you're worried." Bill said.

The Doctor had been checking out the ground the trees were growing in.

"Well, you never know what's round the next corner." He replied, concealing a small ornate blue pendant behind his back. "Ah, of course, wheat fields outside, now something else to eat when they get here. This is their crops. Look, they're going to have orchards, olive groves. This is their nursery. Look the little robots are doing pollination work."

"Oh, this plant! There's one of these growing outside the Student Union. It smells amazing." Stevie exclaimed.

"Rosemary." The Doctor nodded.

"We're smelling home twenty light years from home. Thanks for bringing us. This is a great day out. I mean, come on, admit it. You love it.

"Did I say I didn't love it? Yes, I do. It's very lovable. You asked me where all the people were, and I theorised that they hadn't got here yet. Did I sound convincing?"

"Yeah."

"And did I convince myself?"

Bill glanced at the slightly frowning emoji on the Doctor's back and shook her head.

"No, no. And I'll tell you why. Because there should be somebody here. There should be some kind of set-up team, a skeleton crew."

Charlie walked out onto the landing pad where the wind was much stronger and blustery. Will and Mat were taking advantage of the height and taking photos of the amazing view - a radiant blue cloudless sky lit with twin suns and a golden wheatfield for as far as the eye could see. "Any good shots?"

"Yeah, I'll put them on the group chat later." Mat replied.

"How are you two doing?"

"Duhhh." Will replied pointing at the badge on his back.

"Oh yeah, stupid question."

"What do you think's going on here?"

"I dunno. But something's up here I'm certain of it. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious and if you see anything let me know. I'll see if the others found anything and then we can head back to the TARDIS."

Charlie stepped back inside and Olaolu called him over to see what he and Joe had found.

"The papers were all just blueprints and stuff for those ships there but look." Olaolu pointed to a half drunk mug of coffee on one of the workbenches. Charlie dipped his finger into the liquid for a moment to gauge its temperature. "Lukewarm. This coffee was made recently."

"Then where's whoever made it?" Olaolu asked.

"Maybe they needed to pee?" Joe suggested.

"Joe are you actually for real?" Olaolu stared at him confusedly.

"Oh no. No no no you're doing that frowny Scottish thing again. You're thinking. Tell me what you're thinking about." Bill said to the Doctor as he inspected the fertiliser pouring from shower heads above the plants.

"A magic haddock."

"Obviously. What is this stuff? Is it snow?"

"This is fertiliser. Mineral fertiliser, calcium-based. Now, we don't have answers, so let's put together two questions. What is the source of this mineral fertiliser? And where are all the people?"

The Doctor sonicked a lower hatch, where a load of skulls and various bones tumble out.

"Urgh!" Bill exclaimed recoiling in shock.

"Eww," Stevie said.

"That's gross," Christie stated.

"There's the people. Here, right here, in this garden." The Doctor explained.

"Oh, my God," Bill responded.

The Doctor picked up a skull. Kezzia. He glanced down at her pendant he picked up. His emoji now sported a tear.

"Despite appearances, they haven't been dead very long."

"What, those are the colonists?" Pharez asked.

"Oh my god he just said that." Charlotte sighed.

"The colonists aren't here yet. This is the set-up team, the skeleton crew." The Doctor repeated.

"Why did the robots feed them to the garden?" Bill asked, her fear reflected on her badge.

"I don't know. Maybe they ran out of fertiliser. Let's not ask them." The Doctor replied

The group turned to exit and found the interface in front of their path, with a tearful face on it.

"Oh, hello! We were just admiring your garden." The Doctor said with extravagant cheerfulness.

"Yes!" Bill said with the same vigour.

"Moving on now because there's nothing of particular interest here. Cheerio." The Doctor and Bill hastily stepped around the interfaces and the others followed suit.

The robot's face changes to the death emoji and turned after them as they ran down the corridor.

The Doctor held his hand to his ear. "Charlie, this place isn't safe."

"Yeah tell me about it..." Charlie replied as he paced the room.

"Get yourselves to the TARDIS. We'll meet you on the way."

"Roger that," Charlie turned to the others. "We've gotta get out of here. The Doctor says this place is dangerous."

"Finally!" Olaolu exclaimed.

They turned and began to walk back towards the entrance when a noise made them stop dead in their tracks. The clattering of a metal bar against the solid ground reverberated through the stunned silence of the hangar. And just under one of the spacecrafts, they could see two small robotic feet stood behind it.

"Run!" Charlie said as more Emojibots suddenly appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

The Doctor and the others raced down a spiralling staircase.

"If he's chasing us, he's moving very slowly," Milly noted

"Do you know what it means when something chases you very slowly?" The Doctor asked.

"What?"

"It means there's a reason that they don't have to run."

"That's cheerful," Stevie said sarcastically.

As Charlie and the others turned a corner they ran into the Doctor and the rest of the group as they reached the bottom of the stairs. Before they had time to exchange pleasantries they turned into another corridor and skidded to an abrupt halt at an intersection when suddenly two Emojibots appeared ahead of them. Stevie and Charlotte who were at the back turned to go back the way they came but that path was also blocked, as were the left and right corridors. They were trapped.

"Okay, they're slow, but the city is full of them, so they catch you in the end." The Doctor said, thinking out loud.

"What do we do?" Charlie asked.

"Question. We've been here for ages. Why are they attacking us now?"

"Does it matter?" Bill asked.

"Only if we want to live. Smile for me!"

"Smile?"

"Use your whole face, right now, do it. Everyone do it!"

"What good's smiling?" Bill grinned, as her emoji changed to a smile.

"Smiles aren't just smiles. Psychologically, they have a measurable effect on your mood states. Yes. These robots, they built this place, they grew those trees. Something went wrong, but they were designed to make you happy."

"How would massacring hundreds of people make me happy?"

"How would massacring hundreds of people make me happy smiley face." The Doctor reminded.

"Smiley face." Bill grinned.

The Doctor turned to Charlie and some of the others who weren't smiling.

"You're not smiling. Why are you not smiling?"

"Uh, because I'm not gonna make myself grin like an idiot..." Charlie retorted.

"Charlie just do it..." Bill urged as the Emojibots took a step towards them.

"Okay fine!" Charlie smiled yet it looked more like a grimace as his emoji badge reflected.

"Smile better!"

Charlie rolled his eyes but co-operated.

"Why are we smiling though?" Stevie said uneasily.

"I don't have time for this," The Doctor muttered under his breath, his brow creased. "The alternative is death. So to put it plainly, smile or you're a dead emoji."

"That's not helping!" Stevie began to tear up.

"Oh for god's sake, Stevie, just smile!" Charlotte shouted, agitatedly.

Two sections of wall broke off and dissolved into swarms of Vardies and within an instant had engulfed Charlotte and Stevie and their remains crashed to the floor.

"EVERYBODY SMILE!" The Doctor yelled.

"Oh my god!" Christie exclaimed.

"Keep smiling!" Bill pleaded.

"Doctor, what do we do!" Will asked.

"The magic haddock."

"What magic haddock? What's that all about?"

"The robots want you to be happy but they got the wrong end of the stick. I think we should give them what they want."

The Doctor put on a slightly frightening smile on and walked towards the little robots.

"Don't even try without smiling. What a lovely place you have here. Thank you so much for your hospitality." He said with a toothy grin.

"We will come again." Bill smiled.

"I beg to differ..." Milly said.

" Doctor, I was thinking maybe next time we might go to Wiltshire, perhaps, or Aberdeen." Bill continued.

"Ah, yes. Two thumbs up for Wiltshire slash Aberdeen."

The Doctor and Bill slid past the robots outstretched arms, then Charlie and Olaolu, and then the others followed suit.

They all ran out across an open walkway, the wind blowing in their hair when out of nowhere a robot clutched Emily's arm with an iron grip.

"Doctor!"

"Smile! Smile!"

He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the interface and it released its grip on her.

"You say that like it's so easy!" Charlie argued.

"Is this one of those teenage mood swings?" The Doctor retorted.

"For god's sake, Doctor! Two of our friends are dead!" Charlie stopped dead in his tracks.

"Don't make it a third," The Doctor snapped around with an angry glare. "Look, I am sorry about your friends but look around you, Charlie. There are still 12 of us still alive and I am doing all that is in my power to keep it that way. And if you thought even for a second that their deaths were unimportant to me then you clearly know nothing of me at all!" The Doctor stormed off and many of the others chased after him as a chunk of the curved structures transformed into a swarm of Vardies.

"Well I'm shook..." Olaolu declared.

"Keep moving," Charlie replied.

As they run a chunk of the superstructure turns into a swarm of insects and follows.

"Where did they come from?" Lauren asked.

"Once we're out of the city, we should be safe." The Doctor assured.

"Are they still coming after us?" Bill gasped as they reached the TARDIS.

"I'm guessing that once we're out, we're not their problem." The Doctor theorised. "Right. You'll be perfectly safe in the Tardis. She'll look after you until I get back."

"Where are you going?"

"There's a giant smiley abattoir over there and I'm having this really childish impulse to blow it up! So you, you, you and you with me!" The Doctor pointed at Charlie, Olaolu, Mat and Will.

"Wait I want to come!" Joe protested.

"Definitely not. I can see your upset. Emotions get in the way and make you susceptible to impulses. Be right back."

"What, you're going back in? We've only just escaped! I thought we were going home." Bill said.

"Home? Why would we be going home? That place is a living deathtrap. We can't just leave it with its mouth wide open."

"But they're all dead. We saw them. It's too late."

"We have to assume that there is a colony ship on the way. What do you think's going to happen when all those people arrive? They're expecting the new garden of Eden. What they are not expecting is to be the fertiliser. There's broadband in there. Go! Go and watch some movies or something!"

"I get that someone has to do something but why is it you? Can't you phone the police? Isn't there a helpline or something?"

"And stay away from my browser history."

"Why are you only taking the guys back?"

"You want to argue about this now? The future of humanity hangs in the balance and you want another debate about sexism? I'm not doing this now. I have a job to do so I and the Expendables here are off to save humanity."

"Then take us with you," Milly said.

"The larger this group gets the harder it will be to get you all out alive."

"Then why bring us here at all?"

"I don't go flying around looking for trouble. It just happens. I'm sorry about your friends but I know it's not going to be easy for you to focus right now and right now, that could slow us down or get someone else killed. And I can't risk that. Now, go inside and we'll be back before you know it."

Inside the TARDIS, Bill watched the Doctor and the others run back towards the city.

"Penguin with its arse on fire." She smiled to herself.

She stepped outside and read the notice on the door - 'Advice and Assistance Obtainable Immediately'.

"Huh."

Poking her head back inside the TARDIS she addressed Milly and Emily, "Coming?"

"Where?" Emily asked.

"Duh, back to the city."

"The Doctor said we should stay here." Milly reasoned.

"So? They might need us. So, are you coming or not?"

Emily and Milly exchanged a glance and proceeded to follow Bill back to the city in a different direction so as not to be seen by the Doctor.

The Doctor took out Kezzia's pendant and opened it to show a hologram of a happy waving boy when one of the Emojibots approached them.

"Ah! Good morning! We're happy! Good morning. Look at me, I'm happy, happy, happy, happy! What a lovely, beautiful morning, it makes me so happy. I'm happy. I hope that you are happy, too. See? Happy." He smiled, gesturing to his emoji badge.

The robot's face turned happy and walked past. Walking up the spiral slope, according to his back, the Doctor had a lightbulb moment. Using his new comms device in his ear, he asked, "Hello? Is someone there? I can hear you breathing."

"Why are you Scottish?" Bill asked.

"I'm not Scottish, I'm just cross. What are you doing here?"

"We wanted to help." Emily interrupted.

"You were helping by keeping yourselves safe."

"Well, we're here now so..." Milly replied.

"How many of you are there?" The Doctor snapped.

"Just us three," Bill said. "Is there a Scotland in space?"

"They're all over the place, demanding independence from every planet that they land on. Why are you here?"

"Because I figured out why you keep your box as a phone box."

"I told you, it's stuck."

"Advice and Assistance Obtainable Immediately. You like that."

"No, I don't."

"See, this is the point. You don't call the helpline because you are the helpline."

"Don't sentimentalise me. I don't just fly around helping people out."

"What are you doing right now then?"

"Teleporting you to our location." The Doctor smirked as he tapped a computer pad which led to Bill, Emily and Milly appearing before them in a flash of light.

"Ugh what was that?" Emily complained with a hand on her head.

"You'll be fine." The Doctor said before turning to Bill. "I happened to be passing by, so I'm mucking in."

"Pfft! You've never passed by in your life. You couldn't even leave her serving chips!" Charlie protested.

"And that's why we're not going to leave you." Bill smiled gleefully.

"Look at the wall." The Doctor said, diverting their attention.

"The wall?" Olaolu asked in confusion.

"Closely. Before, when the Vardy, the little micro bots, were going to attack you, you asked me where they came from. Well, they didn't come from anywhere. They were here all the time."

"What? In the wall?"

"No, not in the wall. They're not in the wall, they are the wall."

He sonicked the wall to reveal that it was made of tiny little blocks.

"They're all the walls. These little robots, they didn't build this place, they became it. They can be a part of a wall one minute, flying around the next. This whole structure is built from interlocking microbots. Smile! You're in the belly of the beast."

"So what do we do?" Mat asked.

"Well, the obvious. We find a real wall. When the Vikings invaded, they used to pull their longboats out of the water, turn them upside down and live in them as houses until they'd pillaged and looted enough to build new ones."

"So?" Olaolu questioned.

"You didn't see a space ship outside, did you? When the settlers first landed, they must have lived in it and built out from it, so it's still here, somewhere inside this building. Ah. Bits of meteor damage. Flecks of rust. Rivets. Oh, I love rivets. A wall. A real, honest wall. Not made of tiny robots but made of any old iron."

Bill's emoji smiled.

"Every spacecraft needs a door." She said, heaving on a handle to no avail. The Doctor pressed a button and it opened with an industrial hiss.

"Not even locked. They were expecting to live in peace." Charlie noted.

"Wicked." Bill grinned

"We'll lock it after us, shall we?" The Doctor said.

Meanwhile across the whole city, the Emojibots' eyes lit up with exclamation marks to signify a threat.

"The ship life support systems are starting up. It knows we're here." The Doctor explained

"Whoever did the interior decoration in here needs to take lessons from whoever did it out there," Bill said.

"Agreed." Will said

"Ah, this was built by humans, that was built by Vardy. Wet brains, dry brains."

They navigated their way through the labyrinth of pipes and eventually reached a map of the ship.

"Ah! Good, old, universally compatible, incorruptible maps." The Doctor said.

"Oh my god why could they not have put one of these at the entrance!" Will exclaimed.

"You are here. This is the engine room. That's the target. That's where I'm going as well as you two." The Doctor pointed at Charlie and Olaolu.

"Where are we going?" Will asked.

"You and Mat are staying here and you will be guiding me to here, using this map. I'll hear you through the thingummybob. And then Bill, Emily and Milly, you are keeping an eye out for any interfering interface robots. If you see any, come straight back here or get to safety then tell us over the comms system. But under no circumstances put yourselves in danger. Understood?"

They all nodded.

"Then let's get to work."

Will scanned his eyes over the map when the Doctor asked. "Left or right?"

"Err.... right."

"Well, they were certainly planning to make themselves at home here. They brought all their favourite knick-knacks." The Doctor noted as they walked through the cargo bay.

"There should be a door coming up now." Mat said.

"Yup," Charlie affirmed.

Bill, Milly and Emily found themselves outside a door after walking through the pipes. They pulled on the handle and with a mechanical clunk, the door released and opening to reveal a small room lined with dozens of powered-off Emojibots.

"Woah," Milly said.

"I really am on a spaceship!" Bill said looking around in awe.

"Yes. Which we are about to blow up." The Doctor replied through the comms.

"I've been thinking though. How are you allowed to do that? Like, how are you allowed to blow something up and not get into trouble? I mean, blow something up, get into trouble. That is a standard sequence."

"What do you mean, allowed? It's a moral imperative. This is a murder machine."

"Beautiful, though, I mean, the whole place."

"All traps are beautiful, that's how they work."

"Right, you should be able to see a staircase." Will told them.

"Up or down?"

"Down. What's this big bit in the middle though? The engine is right in the middle of a big empty space. What's that for?"

They were cut off by a loud siren followed by the message "Attention. Attention. Erehwon systems initiated." through the tannoy system.

"The ship's systems are set to respond to human presence. It was sleeping. We walked in, now it's waking up." The Doctor explained.

"We should hurry up then," Olaolu advised.

"Er, there should be a ladder." Will said.

"Got it." The Doctor confirmed.

He went down the ladder first followed by Olaolu and Charlie respectively and opened a hatch in the engine. A second alarm sounded and the robots' faces changed to the death emoji. Row by row, the Emojibots' screens lit up, displaying the death emoji and their heads looked up as they turned towards Bill, Milly and Emily.

"Uh, guys... We just found a room full of robots. And they're waking up..."

"Oh crap," Olaolu said.

"Get yourselves out of there!" Charlie replied.

"Come on you heard him! Run!" Bill exclaimed leading the way.

"And keep smiling!" The Doctor added as he, Charlie and Olaolu reached the engine core.

They clambered down a ladder, at the bottom of which was a narrow walkway overlooking a sheer drop. At the centre of the walkway was their target.

"Beautiful. Fleishman Cold Fusion Engine. All I've got to do is back the flow into the calorimeter and run. It's like it wants to get blown up." The Doctor grinned.

"Let's get to it, then," Charlie suggested.

They crossed the walkways carefully and then examined the meters and readings on the engine. "So what do we do?" Olaolu asked.

"Charlie, use your sonic screwdriver to open that grate there and you two can pull out all the computer components and then wait for me to come over and rewire them."

"I can do it myself you know. I did learn a thing or two while I worked at Torchwood," Charlie protested.

"Where?" Olaolu replied, confused.

"Tell you later."

"Yeah all the same, just wait for me." The Doctor said.

"Fine. What are you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna open up this flooring panel and start rerouting currents."

The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket and then peered in confused. Patting down his jacket, he reached the conclusion, "I must've left the jacket back where we had to sonic open the hatch. I'll be back in a jiffy."

"Okay," Olaolu said in acknowledgement as Charlie set to work on the grate before opening the floor panel for the Doctor prior to his return.

The angry robots marched after Milly, Emily and Bill as they scrambled through an open doorway into the cargo bay. Sealing the door, they admired the artefacts including Renaissance paintings and a bust of Nefertiti in the cargo bay. Bill strolled towards a purple curtain which she pulled back to reveal the corpse of an elderly woman lying on a bier. As she approached, the badge on the deceased's forehead lights up with dots for eyes and a cross over the mouth. Bill opened a book at the corpse's feet and watched a display of Earth's history in snapshots, depicting the birth of man right through to the present day. And all that was yet to happen... Scenes of violence and fire and war flashed across the screen.

"Doctor, why did people come here? Did something terrible happen? I've got to know. The people who came here, were they the last people? Were they our last hope?"

"Earth was evacuated," The Doctor sighed. "But there were a number of ships. I've bumped into a few of them over the years. "

"Where the hell is the Doctor! Ugh, forget it, I'm making a start without him." Charlie complained.

"I'll see if I can find him," Olaolu said.

"Okay, take the sonic screwdriver. You might need it."

"Won't you need it?"

"Nah. It's just a combination of pressing buttons, flicking switches, and crossing wires."

"Okay, be right back."

Bill turned to find a young boy next to her.

"Oh," Bill exclaimed

"Are we there yet?" The boy asked.

After a few minutes of tinkering, Charlie was monitoring one of the gauges when a set of footsteps came down the ladder.

"I think everything's done. Did you find him then, Olaolu?" Charlie asked, his back to him.

"I'm still looking."

"Wait what?" Charlie snapped round and took a couple of steps forward but stopped instantly as he saw an Emojibot coming towards him with its sinister intent clear.

"What's going on?"

"The interface. There's one here."

"Okay, I'm on my way."

"Hurry!"

"I'll be there soon!" The Doctor called through the comms system.

The Emojibot inched closer and closer to Charlie who edged backwards blindly. When suddenly his foot slipped against something smooth and metallic. The flooring panel. Charlie lost his footing as the panel plummeted down into the abyss and only just manage to hang onto the walkway.

"Charlie!"

Amongst all the chaos, Charlie had failed to notice Olaolu climbing down behind him.

"What should I do!?"

"Sonic it! Doctor, I can't hold on much longer..."

"Coming!" The Doctor said through the comms.

Olaolu pointed the sonic screwdriver at the Emojibot and pressed the button, causing sparks to fly from it, but it was otherwise unaffected.

"Shit! It didn't work!"

The Emojibot turned to face its attacker and closed in on Olaolu.

"Olaolu run!"

Olaolu turned back to the ladder but it was too late. Another Emojibot approached from the other side. There was nowhere to run.

"It's too late. There's another one."

"Oh god. Olaolu, I'm sorry." Charlie felt a sinking feeling.

"Nah it's okay," Olaolu said solemnly. "But if this it, then I'm taking these two to Hell with me!"

The Emojibots wrapped their arms around Olaolu in a tight grip. His emoji badge flashed with a light bulb.

"Screw this!" He said as he stepped off the walkway. He felt weightless for a second before everything faded to oblivion.

"No, Olaolu!" Charlie shouted as he struggled to keep his grip, his legs swinging precariously. "DOCTOR!"

"Sorry, sorry I'm here." The Doctor said, descending the ladder and rushing over to help Charlie up. "Where's Olaolu?"

Charlie stared at him and the Doctor gave him a knowing look. "I'm sorry."

"Save it. There's another one." Charlie said looking past the Doctor' shoulder.

"Wait, you're not smiling."

"Neither are you."

"How's my badge?"

"Sort of quizzical? Me?"

The Doctor paused and the colour drained from his face. "Two tears."

"Ah."

A large buzzing noise resounded in the engine room when suddenly a large swarm of Vardies shot down the ladder and went straight for Charlie, giving him only enough time to say "Smile!" before his skeleton collapsed to the floor. The column of Vardies then spiralled back up the way they'd come as the Emojibot advanced on the Doctor.

He kicked its footing out from under it, once it was near enough to him but it grabbed the Doctor's ankle with one arm whilst maintaining its grip on the walkway with the other.

"Doctor, there's something you need to know," Bill said.

"I'm too busy! But get down here now!"

"Got it."

The Doctor continued to struggle when Bill called down the hatch, "Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?"

"Ah! Don't worry about me. I'm having the time of my life, making new friends!"

"Come on."

She and the boy went down the ladder. Meanwhile, the Doctor unplugged a steam hose to send the robot into the void under the engine core.

"Get ready to run! Run really fast!" He called.

He ran across the catwalk to Bill and the boy.

"The rest of us are upstairs. Mat and Will came down with us. Wait, where are Charlie and Olaolu?"

"I'm sorry, the Vardies got them both."

"Ah," Bill said shakily.

"Hang on! What? Where did you come from?" The Doctor asked, perplexed turning to the boy.

"Where is everybody?"

"When you say, everybody..."

The Doctor and the others along with the boy stood at an expansive corridor reaching almost as far as the eye could see vertically and horizontally.

"My very good people, we will soon be beginning an emergency disembarkation. Good people, please prepare for disembarkation. We wish you a happy new world." The Tannoy stated.

"Doctor?" Bill asked.

"Pods... Pods!"

"What is it? What's happening?"

"We can't blow up the city."

The Doctor and the others minus the boy rushed back to the engine core.

"Those pods, what's in them?" Mat asked.

"I got it wrong. I got it very, very wrong." He started tinkering with the wires as he continued, "The colony ship isn't on the way, it's right here. The colonists are all around us, cryogenically frozen. What's in those pods, Bill, is the surviving population of Earth. And I nearly killed all of them."

"Welcome to your new world. Be happy." The tannoy announced as the boy entered the city.

"They're waking up, aren't they?" Bill asked.

"We must have triggered the process when we came in."

"So what happens now?"

"Now? Now they're all going to leave this ship, and find their friends and family mulched in the garden. And if they don't smile about that, it's going to be the end of the human race."

A man walked towards them rubbing his head as they entered the cryostore. "Oh! Oh, those pods, eh? Not much headroom. Oh, I thought I'd be first up. Steadfast, MedTech One. What day is this?" He asked.

"The end of the world." The Doctor replied bluntly.

"Again? We've only just got here."

"Bill, with me."

"What's happening?" Steadfast asked as the Doctor walked away from the group leaving them all confused.

"What's happening is nobody leaves this ship until I tell you otherwise. Clear? Nobody leaves."

"Where are we going?" Bill asked.

"No idea. But if I look purposeful, they'll think I've got a plan. If they think I've got a plan, at least they won't try to think of a plan themselves."

"But you don't have a plan."

"I don't know how to stop it happening again because I can't figure out why it happened last time. What made them do this?"

"I think I need to show you something."

"Section A34, reanimation sequence commencing."

The Doctor and Bill entered the mausoleum where the elderly woman had been laid to rest.

"The spacecraft landed. Most of the colonists were kept in cryogenic suspension. A few, the ones with skills..." The Doctor began to explain.

"The best ones. The brave ones." Bill added

"They were woke to shepherd the little flocks of Vardy robots."

"She came here. She was happy. It was all going well. Those are the shepherds, aren't they? And they're all dead."

"If we rearrange this data to reflect the time of death, what do we get?"

"That's her."

"This woman died. There's no sign of violence. So, you know, she just died the way that humans do. Then a few more people died all at the same time, and then a lot more died just after, and then, the rest. Dozens."

"A virus? A virus that went, well, viral?"

"Grief! Grief! Grief as plague."

"But how?"

"The Vardies. Well, their job was to maintain happiness. At first, that meant making sure there was enough oxygen and water. That's what the badges are meant to communicate. Satisfaction, a positive mental state. But the Vardy are smart. They learn, try to be good servants, so they expand the definition of happiness until?"

"She dies."

"No one had ever died here before this lady. The Vardies, they'd never heard of grief before. This place is all about hope and the future, and happiness. No one ever thought about the opposite. The Vardies didn't know what to do with it. They identified grief as the enemy of happiness and everyone who was experiencing grief as a problem, as?"

"Compost."

"And all those dead people, well, you know, they had friends and family, too, so..."

"Even more compost."

"And so on, and so on, and so on. And what you get is a whole grief tsunami."

"And all of this took how long? One morning? All of these people were slaughtered in a day?"

"Slaughtered for their own good, because the Vardy think different. Like the magic haddock. Not bad, not good, just, just different."

"So, what will happen when the new people meet the robots?"

The Doctor gave Bill the pendant and she opened it.

"That's the boy. The first to wake up. Where did you get this?"

"I think it's his mother's, don't you?

"Yeah, or his Nan's. Well, he'll find her, when she wakes up in her pod."

"I found it in the fruit garden when we first arrived." The Doctor said to her solemnly.

"Oh." Bill dropped her head.

"I would say that a lot of the colonists had friends or family who were working here as shepherds. When they find out what happened..."

"They'll be... grief-stricken."

"And after that?"

"A massacre. Okay, where are we going?"

"What's the opposite of a massacre?"

"Okay, what?"

"In my experience, a lecture."

Inside the cryostore, the Doctor began his lecture to the awakened population, "You brought the Vardy here, microbots to make your life so easy. But like every slave class in history, the Vardy are beginning to have ideas of their own. They wanted to eliminate unhappiness, but to a robot that meant eliminating unhappy people. They gave you monitors, badges, so they'd know when you were too unhappy to live."

Minutes later they all began to raid the armoury for weapons to defend themselves. Steadfast grabbed a large gun, and other colonists also helped themselves.

"You need to listen!" Bill argued.

"I did listen. What did I miss? The Vardy have killed our families." Steadfast replied, enraged.

"But you need to understand why that happened." The Doctor reasoned.

"I don't care why." Steadfast retorted

"Then you will die, too, and so will everyone on your ship. The Vardy are not your enemy."

"They want to kill us."

"No. They want to help you. Killing you is just a side-effect."

"Get out of my way."

"You've got guns. You think that will help against a whole living city?"

Emily, Milly, Mat and Will leant against a wall watching everything unfold. Bill turned to them, "That little boy, where did he go?"

"My mum was a gardener. Have you seen her? She's supposed to be here." The boy asked two of the Emojibots.

The armed colonists suddenly stormed in to find the boy with the two robots.

"There he is!" Will exclaimed.

"Step away from the kid!" Steadfast ordered.

"They're not armed. You don't need to do this. You just need to..." Bill trailed off as she was ignored by Steadfast.

"What's wrong? What's going on? Where's my mum? Where's everyone?"

Without warning, the robots took hold of Nate's wrists.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Don't cry, don't cry! Hey, hey. Look, everything's going to be okay. Look, this is your new house. Isn't it lovely?" Bill said, crouching in front of him.

"I want Mummy."

"Smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. Everything's going to be fine if you just keep smiling."

But it was too late. The robots had switched from tears to death.

"Get away from the kid!"

Steadfast fired at one of the Emojibots' pot-belly. There's a beeping sound from the other and its face display flickered briefly.

"What's that? Rage? Revenge?" The Doctor said, fascinated.

"It's one robot."

"It's not one robot though. Doctor, what do we do?" Bill panicked.

Right on cue, a section of the roof turned into a swarm of Vardies.

"Cover fire, now!" Steadfast yelled.

"Fascinating!" The Doctor exclaimed.

"What's fascinating?" Milly asked.

"The Vardy are identifying as under attack, which means they identify as a species. They are self-aware. They, they're alive!"

"They're going to kill us!" Will shouted

Several of the colonists were reduced to skeletons. The Doctor took the damaged robot's face-plate plate off.

"What are you doing?" Bill asked.

"I really hope this doesn't hurt. Do you know why I always win at chess? Because I have a secret move. I kick over the board. Here it comes!" The Doctor smiled maniacally as he sonicked the robot and everything faded to a blinding white for a moment or two.

When the light faded, the city was intact again and all the people the Emojibots had reduced to skeletons were back in one piece. Milly and Emily went to find Stevie and Charlotte and Will and Mat went to find Olaolu and Charlie.

"Once, long ago, a fisherman caught a magic haddock. The haddock offered the fisherman three wishes in return for its life. The fisherman said, "I'd like my son to come home from the war and a hundred pieces of gold." The problem is magic haddock, like robots, don't think like people. The fisherman's son came home from the war in a coffin and the King sent a hundred gold pieces in recognition of his heroic death. The fisherman had one wish left. What do you think he wished for? Some people say he should have wished for an infinite series of wishes, but if your city proves anything, it is that granting all your wishes is not a good idea. In fact, the fisherman wished that he hadn't wished the first two wishes. You see, in a way, he pressed the reset button."

"It's okay. It's not going to hurt you. Actually, it doesn't even know who you are." Bill said to Steadfast as he aimed his gun at the Emojibot.

"What happened? What have you done? What the hell did you do?" Steadfast asked accusingly.

"Aren't you listening? I pressed the reset button. Every computer has one, and anyone can find it, especially if they happen to be a scary, handsome genius from space. I re-initialised the entire command structure, retaining all programmed abilities but deleting the supplementary reference architecture."

"He turned it off and on again." Bill grinned.

"I turned it off and on again. Of course, I wiped their memories. They no longer have the faintest idea who you are and, in fact, they're wondering what you're doing in their very nice city."

"Their city?" Steadfast said in disbelief.

"Yes, their city. It's made of them."

"It's our city. They're our robots."

"They were. Welcome to your new world. Meet the Vardy. They are, as of now, the indigenous life form. You'd best make friends with them because there are loads of them, and they're the only ones who know how anything works."

"They killed our people."

"Well, look, they have forgotten about that. They've forgotten about you, they've forgotten that you even made them in the first place. Now, since they have absolute power over this city, and since I'm assuming you all don't want to sleep rough tonight, I have a suggestion for you."

"Smile." The Doctor and Bill said in unison.

"You can't be serious."

"I am serious. In fact, I'm willing to be a negotiator."

"Are you now?"

"Yes. Watch." The Doctor turned to the Emojibot. "Hello, I'm the Doctor. A few hours ago, I made the mistake of not recognising your status as an emergent new life form. As recompense for my mistake, please allow me to act as your negotiator with a migratory conglomerate known as the human race. They're looking for a place to stay and they've got their eye on your city. Would you like me to discuss rent?"

The robot's eyes suddenly changed to pound signs.

"So, is it going to work?" Milly asked as the reassembled group walked back to the TARDIS.

"That's up to them."

"Did you just, well, did we just jumpstart a new civilisation?" Bill asked.

"It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it."

"Do you do this all the time?"

"Do what?"

"Fly around sorting things out, like some kind of intergalactic policeman."

"I don't sort things out. I'm definitely not a policeman. It's a dangerous business."

"Yeah well we all made it out alive," Bill replied.

"Not all of us." Charlie interrupted.

"I'm sorry about Olaolu. He died a heroic death." The Doctor said.

Charlie didn't reply and walked on ahead, followed by Mat and Will.

"You live in a police box though," Bill smirked.

"That's a pure coincidence."

"Yeah, of course."

Charlotte and Stevie turned to the Doctor. "We can't do this," Charlotte said. "This is way too dangerous and after nearly dying, it's put everything into perspective. We want to go home."

The Doctor frowned and nodded.

After a few minutes, the TARDIS materialised.

"Right, we're back at the exact moment we left. The kettle's boiling, I've got a vault to guard, and everything is exactly as we left it."

Bill opened the door, "Wasn't snowing when we left..."

"Maybe I do need a steering wheel."

"Where are we?" Charlie asked.

"London. And this is the Thames."

They stared down at the frozen solid River Thames. An elephant walked towards them, raised its trunk and trumpeted and a church bell tolled in the distance. Charlie and Bill exchanged a glance. The Doctor had definitely not taken them home.  
  
  
  



End file.
